Big Yahoo story today on UCONN recruiting violations

[Russ Smith]

Involving a kid named Nate Miles who never played for UCONN, he was kicked off the team when a female student complained of sexual assault and then Miles violated the restraining order.

Yahoo has a ton of evidence of violations, from conduct with an agent who was an ex UCONN manager(not allowed to talk to recruits under NCAA rules) to massively exceeding the phone call limits(ala Kelvin Sampson). it's also made completely clear in the story that UCONN coaches knew of the violations because a UCONN assistant admitted he knew who the agent was and had even informed him we are recruiting Miles. Miles is at a Juco right now and his coach contends UCONN is still recruiting him(probably not now).

This is an intriguing one, there's a very good chance UCONN could win the title this year. Depending on if and when an NCAA investigation took place it could be really dicey for the NCAA to have a sitting champion go on probation even though Miles never actually played for them.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Just like a lot happened when Yahoo exposed all the shenanigans at USC?

Nothing to see here folks.

 

[Dback Jon]

Too big of a name program, ESPN's darling. Slap on the wrist at most.

 

[Skkorpion]

College hoops is rotten to the core. Everybody knows it. I agree. Nothing new here. Boeheim built his whole program on backdoor cheating with slime. Who cares?

Alumni give more money when the team wins.

 

[Renz]

You never know. Indiana is a blue blood program and they got taken to the woodshed. Calhoun is probably bulletproof though.

If worse comes to worst I'm sure UCONN will just throw some assistants under the bus and we will then be treated to a plethora of testimonials from Dickie V and Digger as to the absolute integrity of Calhoun and UCONN hoops.

 

[Mulli]

College hoops is rotten to the core. Everybody knows it. I agree. Nothing new here. Boeheim built his whole program on backdoor cheating with slime. Who cares?

Alumni give more money when the team wins.

I agree. I hereby promise to give ASU something if they ever make it to the Final Four.

 

[Russ Smith]

Just like a lot happened when Yahoo exposed all the shenanigans at USC?

Nothing to see here folks.

That was ESPN but the point is valid.

The difference in this case is Yahoo makes it perfectly clear that UCONN knew they were violating the rules because an assistant coach knew the agent was involved with Miles, he even told the agent we're recruiting him.

USC's whole defense in the Mayo situation is we didn't know he wasn't an amateur, nobody believes them, but that's their plausible deniability defense. UCONN can't do that here the assistant outright admits in the story that he knew the guy was an agent and that he was dealing with him while recruiting Miles which is a violation.

I'm not naive enough to think UCONN will be yanked from the tourney this week or anything like that but if Yahoo's story is true there's a much easier case for the NCAA to prove against UCONN than against USC with Mayo.

To me the worst part of the whole story is the total lack of ethics of Calhoun. I bit my lip and didn't say much when that story broke about the reporter asking if he'd take a paycut and he screamed at the guy and people defended him because UCONN produces so much money. But this story just like the Marcus Williams laptop story just proves again Calhoun doesn't care at all what a kid does as long as he can play basketball.

After all the nonsense that went on around this kid, until this story came out this morning, UCONN was still actively recruiting this kid to come back from Juco and play for them next year.

 

[Southpaw]

Now we know why Calhoun makes $1.6 million per year and is the highest paid state employee in Connecticut. Is there any other college in America with 2 slimier coaches running their BB programs than Calhoun & Auriemma? Take them both down.

 

[Skkorpion]

You never know. Indiana is a blue blood program and they got taken to the woodshed. Calhoun is probably bulletproof though.

If worse comes to worst I'm sure UCONN will just throw some assistants under the bus and we will then be treated to a plethora of testimonials from Dickie V and Digger as to the absolute integrity of Calhoun and UCONN hoops.

How true.

 

[Russ Smith]

ESPN is reporting that the NCAA will meet with UCONN and decide if there will be a joint investigation or just an NCAA one. Andy Katz says his sources say the NCAA is focussing on 2 issues, the number of phone calls alleged by Yahoo which is a clear cut violation if true(like Sampson), and the agent angle.

And the claim is that the same agent was also responsible for bringing Ater Majok over from Australia. Majok is the Sudan born kid who was playing ball in Australia and had every big program in America trying to get him when he toured the US and said he wanted to play college ball. He also wound up picking UCONN but was never ruled eligible by the NCAA.

Edit, ESPN is in fact reporting that the same agent was responsible for helping Majok get to the US.